


Mr. Third Wheel

by hopeassassin



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-30
Updated: 2013-12-02
Packaged: 2018-01-03 01:36:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1064137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeassassin/pseuds/hopeassassin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s a tiny, unimportant thing. An action he does without really putting his mind into it.</p><p>But the way his fingers brush against the side of her face made her pause. (Part 2/2)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. His Circumstances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Kise thought he was being covert about it, Daiki would beg to differ.

If Kise thought he was being covert about it, Daiki would beg to differ.

 

After all, he might not make people very aware of it, but the truth was that Aomine Daiki was a very observant, and quite aware of his situation person.

 

He noticed immediately when Kise started showing interest in spending more time with Daiki and Satsuki on their way home—especially considering his own abode was in the opposite direction.

 

He noted it, filed it away and never made much mention of it. It was a free country, and Satsuki seemed to enjoy the presence of someone more ‘ _normal_ ’, as she’d put it, not to mention someone more outgoing and outspoken than him. So, for her sake, he was set to enjoy Ryouta’s presence as well.

 

* * *

 

It didn’t take Daiki long to realize it—for one needn’t be a genius to figure out what two plus two equalled—but as the encounters piled up in Kise’s favour, he was sure that Satsuki (smart girl that she was, too smart for her own good, maybe) was becoming distinctly aware of it, too.

 

It wasn’t _their_ company that Kise was looking for, whenever he joined the two of them on their way home, or in school, or when they were downtown.

 

It was _hers_. And Daiki was just the extra he had to put up in order to continue being in Satsuki’s good graces.

 

Their previous friendship and rivalry on court notwithstanding.

 

After all, basketball was basketball.

 

And courtship was courtship.

 

The more obvious he was becoming, the more often Daiki would sigh deeply and shake his head in dejection. Seriously, Kise—all it would take was just one word from both of them, and Daiki was ready to leave them be. If they both wanted him gone, then there would be no reason to stay, would there?

 

But since Satsuki never said anything, and neither did Kise, he decided to stay.

 

He stayed, because a part of him was worried— _horrified_ —that if he left, his place would get taken.

 

His place and the space in her heart would get filled by another, and he couldn’t live with that.

 

She was still turning a blind eye to Kise’s advances, and she still turned to him whenever she wanted to rant to someone, or needed help, or anything else.

 

His place was still safe, and as long as it was, he was planning on occupying it, for as long as she’d let him.

 

* * *

 

The change starts slowly, very slowly.

 

Things start shifting without his notice, from out of his watchful eye.

 

Things he cannot stop. Things he cannot influence.

 

Things that appal him. Things he doesn’t want to change—they start shifting, morphing, and becoming _different_.

 

The first time it’s brought to his notice is when she, apparently, runs into Kise when she’s planning on shopping on her own. She had decided that asking Daiki to come with her would be too much of a hassle, especially considering how picky he is, and how impatient he is when she needs to change multiple times in and out of clothing garments.

 

There, she runs into Kise, and they end up spending an afternoon without Daiki. He tries not to mind, but it’s hard when that afternoon becomes an evening on Saturday, when instead of playing basketball with his schoolmates, or going to the photo-shoot his manager has been harping to him about for a week, Kise chooses to spend the day with Satsuki—and Satsuki alone.

 

Things start changing and the two of them start slowly, but surely, pushing him away. He is slowly, but steadily, becoming the third wheel.

 

And it makes his blood run cold.

 

It does, but if it’s what she wants, there’s no place for him to say anything.

 

It’s not his right, nor his place to complain.

 

It’s her life and her happiness—and he has been a hindrance to the latter for too long already.

 

So, with his hands shaking slightly, but out of sight in his hoodie’s pockets, he says he’s glad that she’s had fun. He congratulates her on her new wardrobe additions which indeed flatter her form nicely.

 

He speaks around the lump in his throat, because this is for the best.

 

* * *

 

When the two of them start dating, the information comes as a complete surprise to the rest of the former Generation of Miracles and the extended crew. It surprises them, because they always thought that Daiki and Satsuki were an item, or that if they weren’t, that they’d end up together.

 

Daiki smiles mirthlessly at their reactions, embittered and displeased about the fact that he needs to tell these words again and again, to all of them; he wonders if maybe they enjoy torturing him without realizing it.

 

It was never like that between Satsuki and him, he would reason. She is her own person and she is free to like whoever she wants, he points out. He’s glad that there’s finally been someone with big enough balls not to be galled by his constant loitering around her so as to make her feel like any normal girl would want to, he lies.

 

He lies through his teeth, because not a day goes by without him wanting to punch Kise’s face when he sees the blonde putting his arm around Satsuki’s shoulders or waist, pulling her up against his side. He lies, because even though he wants Satsuki to be happy, he doesn’t want someone to take her away from him. He doesn’t want her to be happy when he is left to be miserable.

 

He doesn’t want someone else to become the most important person in her life. He doesn’t want someone else to take that special place in her heart that had belonged to him and only him, even when she had claimed to be in love with Tetsu.

 

He doesn’t want to hand her over to another, but he never says, never does anything—because she was never hers to begin with.

 

And the truth was that he really shouldn’t be the person to talk about courage to act upon one’s feelings, when he never found any to act upon his own.

 

So the only thing he can do is force a smile when his sapphire eyes meet her magenta ones, twinkling with glee, as she laughs at something Kise has said to her.

 

He can pretend to smile, and he can pretend that this happy scene before him is not rending his heart, his very soul to shreds.

 

Because she deserves to be happy, he reasons. Because he’s not the kind of guy who can make her the happy she deserves to be, he knows.

 

Because he’s broken and twisted, and he would only drag her down if he continues hanging onto her like a drowning man to a lifeline, he tells himself.

 

So he continues watching over her happiness, becoming more and more a part of the surroundings, until the day when they will no longer notice whether he’s still there or not.

 

Until the day it doesn’t matter if he’s there or not, he will watch over her.

 

Because she means the world to him, even if he can’t convey it with words or actions.

 

She means the world to him, even if he never allows himself to make her aware of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So basically I’ve lost all belief I can write anything half-decent, and this is my weak attempt at writing something again. I’m sorry if it’s bad. Or boring. Or pointless. Which it kind of is. I’m just exercising getting back into the fandom and into the writing groove.
> 
> If you wanna, I could continue this into the Rend Your Heart to Shreds idea that I talked about way back. If you want, I can lead it to a more dramatic, but AoMomo-happier resolution. Or I could just leave it as it is at the moment, since it’s kind of pointless and boring and blah, I’m leaving. xD Hope it wasn’t a total waste of your time. :D


	2. Her Circumstances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s a tiny, unimportant thing. An action he does without really putting his mind into it. 
> 
> But the way his fingers brush against the side of her face made her pause.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still needs touching up, but I have to leave for uni soon. Regardless, it's time to unbreak all the hearts I broke with the previous part to this, so here it is!
> 
> Honestly, though, I had this planned all along--at least when I actually started writing part 1. So it's only natural to put the rest to fruition as well. c:

She first took note of it because of a small and probably unimportant exchange.

 

She was scuffling down her mother’s delicious cooking, in a hurry to eat because she’d spent half of lunch break just looking for idiot Dai-chan. So she was eating a bit more messily than she otherwise would have, but she blamed him for that entirely! Hmph!

 

As she kept wolfing on her food greedily, she ended up leaving some rice on the side of her face. She didn’t have half a mind to notice it, and if it hadn’t been for him chuckling at her antics, she probably would’ve left it there for the rest of the day.

 

But he was sitting across from her and he could see it, so he reached over and brushed it away from her cheek with his thumb, bringing it to his lips to eat the bite instead.

 

It’s a tiny, unimportant thing. An action he does without really putting his mind into it.

 

But the way his fingers brush against the side of her face made her pause. She stopped chomping down on her food, stopped chewing altogether, just blinking in wonder back at Daiki.

 

When he noticed her stillness, he turned his gaze to her, curious what could’ve made her stop in her tracks when she seemed so hell bent not even two seconds ago to eat as much of the world as she could in the remaining minutes of the lunch break.

 

“Hmm? What?” he prompted her when she said and did nothing but stand there as still as a statue.

 

His words brought her out of her reverie and she shook her head to rid it of the useless hindrances.

 

“Oh, it’s nothing. I just thought of something silly,” she told him around the bite in her mouth, taking good care not to make him aware of the way she was inconspicuously avoiding his gaze.

 

Dai-chan’s only indication that he’d heard her was a somewhat thoughtful grunt—as much as that was possible for any grunt of his. She was grateful that he didn’t pursue the matter any further, because all of her mental faculties were already busy with analysing the possibility that had just made itself somewhat apparent—a possibility she had never even considered could arise.

 

The way he had reached over and finished her bite wasn’t something unusual for them. In fact, they were used to letting one another in their personal space enough to have such gestures be a normality between them.

 

Still, Satsuki knew well the barely-controlled ‘I know you’re not as tough as you make yourself out to be, but I have too much strength in my hands so this is as best as I can contain it’ kind of touch that Dai-chan usually exercised on her. He didn’t do it to be mean—she had long since established that. It was really just the fact that he was an idiot and way too strong in the hands than absolutely necessary.

 

So she had grown used to his crude, almost-bruising touch over the years.

 

She was so used to it that there was no way she wouldn’t notice when it was gone.

 

The way his fingers had brushed against the side of her face just then—it was the touch of a man who thought he was handling something extremely precious. And, even in his most considerate moments, Dai-chan had never acted in such a manner towards her.

 

She snuck a glance his way out of the corner of her eye, only to find that he was looking at her listlessly, a lazy yawn already on his lips. She turned her gaze away before he could catch her staring.

 

There was no way, was there?

 

Regardless of whether the possibility was a fact or not, it was the first time Satsuki took note of it.

 

* * *

 

Momoi Satsuki, careful analyst that she was, was a girl for whom proof was very important. She needed proof to base her hypotheses on, thus it was something she habitually sought before making any kind of wild guesses.

 

This was why after that first detail which had brought a curious fact to her attention, she had started carefully, very carefully, looking for confirmation or rebuttal of that initial hypothesis.

 

Only after she starts letting her gaze follow him in his actions, in studying his mannerisms around her a bit closer, does she realize how blind she must have been all along not to notice it.

 

Granted, Dai-chan did a very good job at being so calm and nonchalant about it she was sure no one could blame her for turning a blind eye to it, but still.

 

Every single gesture of his, every single movement he made—it screamed ‘I love you’ in a way she was sure he would never voice aloud.

 

His gaze was constantly seeking her out in the throng of schoolmates and basketball players on a court. His hands were usually in his pockets but whenever she needed any assistance with what she was carrying or doing, he reached out and did it so matter-of-factly, so nonchalantly and naturally as if her asking for help wasn’t even called for. His voice was always low and somewhat lazy, his eyes usually droopy and sleep-laden, but he always listened raptly to what she said despite his appearance.

 

He was so covert and inconspicuous with it, as if it came naturally to him to act that way, that she briefly considered the possibility of him having no clue he felt that way to her. She quickly proceeded to discard that notion, because no man who was clueless about his own feelings would let his hand linger on her shoulder like that when he sent her off to her house after school.

 

So as she gathered more and more encounters, giving her solid proof that she was right, Satsuki couldn’t help starting to feel self-conscious around Dai-chan.

 

She took it so far that she ended up spacing out in class, dragging him into detention with her.

 

“Sorry, Dai-chan,” she told him in an almost mournful tone. “You were probably looking forward to going to practice today, since Shuutoku came over for a mock-match.”

 

Daiki blinked the sleep out of his eyes, and stared at her as if she were mad. His intense scrutiny made colour rise to Satsuki’s cheeks for reasons too complex to be easily explicable.

 

“Why are you apologizing to me?” he couldn’t understand.

 

“Like I just said—” she tried to start again, but he didn’t give her the chance.

 

“I’ve spent a lot more time dragging you into _my_ messes, and I never once apologized for it. I don’t see why you feel like you should now. Isn’t this what we usually do? Inconvenience each other so there’s what to nag about?”

 

His explanation made her eyes widen in surprise and realization.

 

“Don’t be so distant all of a sudden, Satsuki. This kind of thing is no big deal. So what if I miss the practice match? I’ll wipe the floor with Midorima in the Inter-High.”

 

The somewhat forlorn note in his voice when he said that made Satsuki realize her mistake a little too late. His words also shook her out of the hole she had dug herself into. So, instead of responding, she beamed brightly back at him with the most dazzling smile she could manage, making him reciprocate the expression in turn.

 

“You’re right—after all, I have to get back at Dai-chan for all the times I ended up looking all over school for you instead of doing my own thing!”

 

The navy-haired boy chuckled and resumed writing in the class notebook he had been left in detention with.

 

“That’s right. It’s a long debt to repay so don’t sweat the small details.”

 

She watched him carefully as she sat in front of him. She stared at him until the intensity of her gaze drew his attention to her.

 

“What?” he asked her, cocking a curious brow.

 

Satsuki merely smiled kindly and shook her head before turning her attention to her own detention task.

 

“It’s nothing, don’t mind me,” she told him as she resumed her work.

 

That afternoon, Satsuki realized why Dai-chan could know what kind of feelings he had for her, and still remain the usual Dai-chan with only slight alterations to the way he acted towards her. After all, she’d never seen him blush, or stutter, or get all flustered over anything she did—like one would expect a teenager with a crush to act.

 

He never said or did anything to make her outright aware of his feelings because he didn’t think there was anything wrong with them being the way they were. Maybe he was worried what would happen if he told her and she didn’t feel the same. Maybe he didn’t want to make her aware of him in the sense he was aware of her.

 

She didn’t know what it was exactly, but it didn’t matter either. The fact remained that Dai-chan wanted things to stay the same.

 

This suited her perfectly well, too. She liked the way things were as well, so she wouldn’t say or do anything to change that either.

 

The only thing that had really changed between them was the way he felt about her and her awareness of it.

 

* * *

 

When Ki-chan first started tagging along with them, Satsuki kept sneaking little worried glances sideways at Dai-chan’s face. He didn’t appear to be overly bothered by it—at least not enough to show on his face. But she had grown to understand that Dai-chan was a lot better at controlling his expression and his feelings from showing on his face than she would’ve ever given him credit for before, so she wasn’t entirely convinced this was all right.

 

When he asked her if she minded Ki-chan tagging along, she gave him her honest opinion—it was nice to have someone a bit more outgoing than him around, someone she could actually _talk_ to on the way home, so why not?

 

He had smiled at her in that heart-warming way, chuckled and agreed. Right. There was no harm in having one more person on the way home—the more, the merrier, right?

 

Satsuki exhaled slowly through her nose, wondering just how much of that he actually meant, but deciding to go with the flow for the time being.

 

* * *

 

The encounters started piling up, giving her a chance to notice it. For, at the beginning of it, she had believed that Ki-chan missed them both and that was why he dropped by so often—out of some kind of nostalgia for the Teikou days and his friendly rivalry with Dai-chan on court.

 

But then she realized that the reason he showed up so often was so that he could spend some time in their company.

 

Ah, no, not _their_ company— _her_ company. Dai-chan was probably just an extra Ki-chan could do without, but didn’t point out for fear of getting on her bad side.

 

If even she had noticed it, she was sure that Dai-chan knew it as well. The reason why Ki-chan was around. The reason why Ki-chan loved to tag along with them all the time.

 

But still Daiki’s face remained impassive whenever Kise showed up. He didn’t comment on his overly familiar greetings and the way he let his fingers linger on both his and Satsuki’s shoulders when the blonde hugged them both from behind. He didn’t object to the way he made sure to always have a place next to Satsuki regardless whether they were talking, sitting at Maji or anything else. He didn’t say anything, and kept being part of the perfectly normal conversation in a perfectly normal way.

 

On any other occasion, Satsuki would’ve reasoned that Dai-chan is an idiot, so there was a chance he didn’t notice. Either that, or he didn’t care even if he did notice.

 

But not on this. On this topic—and this topic alone—Satsuki was sure that Daiki knew perfectly well what Ki-chan’s agenda was, and there was no way he didn’t mind. Because, although Dai-chan’s expressions were usually lax and his gaze half-lidded, never had he looked that impassive before.

 

To anyone else, his mask of indifference would’ve been the usual Aomine. But to Satsuki, who had been looking carefully at him for the past several months, it was clear that he was making a conscious effort to rid himself of any and all traces of emotion on his face.

 

Never before had she seen him with such a deadened look in his eyes as he had when Ki-chan took her hand and pulled her toward whatever it was that he wanted her to see.

 

The expression that had flitted across his face in that moment had broken her heart, but it was gone so quickly that she wondered if she imagined it.

 

* * *

 

Every time Ki-chan asked if it would be okay with them if they went to this place or that as he suggested, Satsuki always made sure to throw a searching glance in Dai-chan’s direction before she agreed.

 

She didn’t do it because she needed his permission or his agreement in order to decide what to do with her free time.

 

No. She did it to give Daiki a chance to speak his mind.

 

She knew for certain that he had feelings for her. She knew it, and he did, too. She also knew and could _see_ that Ki-chan had feelings for her, too, and, unlike Dai-chan, he was ready to take action based on them. For that, she respected him, regardless of the fact she couldn’t say she felt the same.

 

But no matter how nice of a guy Ki-chan was, the person whose feelings mattered the most to Satsuki were Dai-chan’s.

 

Dai-chan, who cared so much for her it was probably physically painful to be part of this three-way comedy act, but who never said a peep to put an end to this set up. Dai-chan, who cared so much for her that he placed her feelings first and his own second. Dai-chan, the silent trooper who endured anything quietly as long as he deemed it was in her best interest.

 

That was why she kept throwing those searching looks in his general direction. They were her constant reminder that it was all right with her if he spoke up and told Ki-chan that they were busy, maybe some other time; they already made plans together, so maybe next time?

 

But even during the rare occasions when Daiki caught her eye in those moments, he merely shrugged and agreed to the addition of the blonde model.

 

The more often it happened, the more embittered Satsuki started feeling.

 

How could this _possibly_ be _okay_ with him? He knew that Ki-chan liked her too, right? He _knew_ so why did he _agree_ to having him? Was he a masochist or something? Or did he maybe naively believe that Ki-chan wouldn’t do anything, as long as he could just have a chance to spend time with her?

 

How _stupid_ could he get, idiot Dai-chan?!

 

She’d thought the reason for his silence was the fact he cared too much, but it was possible she had it backwards. His continued refusal to take any kind of action at all made her believe that maybe Dai-chan just simply didn’t give enough of a damn to do anything.

 

He didn’t care if she ended up dating some other idiot, so he never stopped her from doing so.

 

It was vexing. It was infuriating. She couldn’t believe after all the stuff that happened, he could still keep a straight face when Ki-chan was obviously coming on to her.

 

Well, if _he_ didn’t care about Ki-chan’s advances, why should _she_ mind them?

 

It’s not like _she_ was the one who had feelings for another.

 

* * *

 

Fuelled by her displeasure with his incapability to act, Satsuki didn’t try to deflect Ki-chan’s invitation when she met him downtown. She spent the day with him, on first glance enjoying his company, but in actual fact thinking the entire time what an idiot Daiki was and pondering if this one encounter would be finally enough to make him drop the impassive mask for once.

 

When she told him about it later, his eyes widened considerably in surprise, and his face was frozen in shock for a flutter of the heart, then two. It took him a moment to compose himself again, but when he did, it was the same old story, told anew.

 

It made her angry. It made her want to slap him across the face when he gives her compliments he doesn’t mean, and gives her hollow words he doesn’t care to feel.

 

He made her so angry that he pushed her into seeking out Ki-chan’s company on her own more frequently, hoping that the next time, maybe he would betray some kind of more animated emotion on his face for a change; that maybe next time, he would decide that he couldn’t handle seeing her with someone else anymore.

 

It turned into a ridiculous game in which the only person actually looking at the right one was Kise. And Satsuki’s behaviour, misleading as it was for him, made him believe that he had a chance.

 

So one afternoon when they were playing at the arcade, he seized this chance and asked her out.

 

Outright, right there, in the middle of the bolstering noise of the downtown arcade, Kise Ryouta—nation-wide heart-throb and one of ten Most Sought After Men Under Twenty—asked her if she would be his girlfriend.

 

She took a long minute, then two, to think about it. ‘It’ being everything. Because Ki-chan’s question made her painfully aware of the way her behaviour must’ve seemed to him. She had led him on, without meaning to. She had given him hope, where there was none.

 

She thought about what kind of reaction Dai-chan would have when she told him she was Ki-chan’s girlfriend. Even after she realized her wrongs in letting this ridiculous cat-and-mouse kind of game go on for so long, she couldn’t stop herself from imagining the expression his face when she told him.

 

“Ah, y-you don’t have to answer me right away if you need some time to think about it!” Ryouta hurried to add, feeling more and more flustered the more time she spent mulling his proposal in complete silence.

 

The truth was she was well aware this was a very cruel decision—towards both boys—but she was so angry with Daiki she decided to ignore the reality of things.

 

“I’ll do it,” she told him then, cutting across his flustered rant. Her words made him halt in his tracks, and when he asked her to repeat what she’d said, she amended, “I’ll be your girlfriend, Ki-chan.” She smiled warmly at him. “Please take good care of me!”

 

* * *

 

“Hmm, so you guys got together, then?” Daiki muttered unimpressed as they tell him over a Maji Burger the next day.

 

Satsuki’s eye twitched in barely repressed ire, but she reined her emotions in before she could give into the temptation of whacking him with the food tablet over the head, hollering, ‘Do something, damn it!’ in his face.

 

Instead, she smiled saccharinely and leaned against her hand on the table across from him.

 

“Well, won’t you say something?” she urged on ambiguously, loading the query with all her pent up frustration with his illogical choice of action—or lack of such—over the past couple of months.

 

Whether he realized that or not, she wasn’t entirely sure. But his eyes do widen a fraction more than usual, and he hummed thoughtfully in the back of his throat as he pondered her question.

 

“I guess congratulations are in order in this situation?” he made it really sound more like a question as well. It wasn’t his tone but his statement that caught her attention, though, making her almost visibly face-fault at his choice of words. “Although, if I have to be frank, I’d tell Kise to think again who exactly he’s asking out.”

 

Satsuki’s magenta eyes became a slightly darker hue while her brows narrowed over them.

 

“Ehh, why’s that, Aominecchi?” Ryouta piped up dutifully.

 

“This woman is more trouble than she’s worth, so you better be sure it’s what you want before you get yourself in deep.”

 

His playful smirk was more devoid of sincerity than any other expression she had ever seen on his face. And the way he avoided looking at her for the remainder of the day did not elude her notice.

 

It made Satsuki’s hands clench into shaking fists in her lap, as she burned holes through her skirt with the intensity of her ire.

 

 _If it bothers you enough to make that kind of expression, then_ do _something for once, damn it!!_

 

* * *

 

She was only playing the game half-heartedly anymore. She had no idea what his nerves were made of to endure this kind of thing for so long and to continue to seem completely unfazed by it, but she couldn’t do that anymore.

 

She had no idea if he still cared anymore, but frankly she was losing her own sensitivity somewhere along the way. She was so worn and tired already, she couldn’t bring herself to think anymore.

 

So she said it thoughtlessly, without really putting any meaning into it. She talked about her plans with Kise, semi-animatedly, no longer really counting on him for any reaction at all. She told him what they had in mind for today, and that she’d make sure to pick up a souvenir as a gift for him from the park she was going on a date with Ryou-chan.

 

She called him that without really putting any special meaning into it. After all, if she was dating the guy, it would be normal to start calling him by his first name, right? And it _was_ her we were talking about here, so of course it would be in the form of some ridiculous moniker.

 

The way she referred to him, though, made the carton of banana milk in Daiki’s hold slip from between his fingers and fall with a thump on her desk. The sound surprised her, making her look up at him curiously, wondering what had caused him to so unusually drop his milk.

 

That’s when she saw it—the broken look on his face, the glazed over with horror look in his almost-comically widened eyes. He had lost proper control of both his fingers and his jaw, the latter hanging open unchecked while his mind tried to keep up with what was happened with no success.

 

Ryou-chan. She had called him Ryou-chan. She was a smart and imaginative girl, so she had come up with nicknames for all the other Teikou guys, but none of them had ever really been like her nickname for him.

 

Now suddenly it felt like the last space that had been occupied by him and only him… was no longer only his to have.

 

She realized a bit too late what it was that had impressed him so. She opened her mouth to take what she’d said back, only to clamp it shut the very next moment. No! She wasn’t going to take it back! She wasn’t going to apologize! If he wanted to say something, then he should just say something already, damn it!

 

If she had hurt his feelings, then he should just come out with it and say _why_ , _damn it_!

 

“A-ah,” he began once he found the use for his vocal cords again. “Right. Please make it something at least remotely useful—my mom complains about having way too much useless knick-knack to brush the dust off of in the living room already.”

 

He picked up the carton of milk again, putting the straw between his lips again, all the while avoiding her gaze in such a pointed way it made her shake with fury.

 

“Is that _all_ you have to say?” she demanded loudly, standing up from her seat on the rooftop next to him.

 

He didn’t turn to look at her as she rose—a rather obvious fact in itself. Especially when considering the rising volume of her voice.

 

“What do you mean?” he said off-handily, his voice hollow. She clenched her teeth angrily and slammed her fist against the concrete around the entrance towards the building.

 

“Don’t give me that shit again after you made such a face just two seconds ago!” she screamed, glaring daggers down at his seated form. He still adamantly refused to meet her gaze, and that made her want to kick him where he stood. “Stop acting as if this doesn’t concern you when I can _see_ that it does!”

 

Daiki sighed loudly, as if here were dealing with a particularly petulant child who didn’t know anything about the real world.

 

“What do you _want_ me to say?” he asked her, never once turning to face her the entire time.

 

The snap of Satsuki’s patience completely running out may as well have been a physically manifested sound in that very moment.

 

“ _Anything_ , damn it, as long as it wipes that crestfallen look of a _dead fish_ off your stupid face! Idiot Dai-chan!”

 

She stormed off the roof, slamming the door leading to it shut behind her, leaving Daiki to fight the demons in his mind on his own.

 

She doesn’t talk to him for a week after this.

 

* * *

 

The same day after she had that talk with Daiki, she called Ryouta and asked him to meet her, because she had something important to tell him.

 

That day she breaks up with him, because she should never have started dating him to begin with.

 

She hung her head low in shame and apology, feeling guiltier and more acutely than ever that she had done something horrible to someone who didn’t deserve it. Her fingers were clenched into fists in her skirt as she bows deeply and asks his forgiveness, knowing full well she had dealt him a blow it would take him some time to recuperate from.

 

Ryouta is a very sensitive boy, despite how he likes to come across, and she knows that. She knows that and it’s the reason why she feels even worse.

 

He’s also a very kind person, so he tells her he’s sorry if he was a burden since she agreed to date him without even being into him like that. She doesn’t understand why he’s apologizing until she sees the tears in the corners of his eyes and she knows she is the worst person in existence in that very moment.

 

* * *

 

She was sitting on the bed in her room, back against the wall and hands in her jersey’s pockets. Her shoulders were slumped as she recalled the same things she had for the past week.

 

The look on Ryouta’s face when she had told him she never had any feelings for him had been heart-breaking. And every time she remembered it—which was at least a hundred times a day nowadays—she felt so angry with herself she would punch herself if she could.

 

What made her hate herself even more was that although Ki-chan was the victim in this situation, the sight that had hurt her more was the expression Daiki had made when she’d called Kise “Ryou-chan” in front of him.

 

Just remembering the clear mix of shock, betrayal and horror on Dai-chan’s usually impassive features made her want to curl up into a hole and die. She’d hurt the two people who never deserved to be damaged like that, and all because of a stupid game of Who’s the Third Wheel In This Situation that she’d allowed to go on longer than it really should have.

 

She was supposed to be the smart and responsible one! What was she doing, letting her childish emotions take reign like that? What was she thinking anyway? _Was_ she even thinking at all, she was beginning to wonder?

 

And why, _why_ did it hurt so much when she realized that the last time she had seen him, she had broken him, and then she hadn’t spoken to him in a week?

 

Why was she in so much pain? It made no sense…

 

She let her eyes snap open in that moment, taking in the fact that she fallen over to rest on her side, her knees pulled up to her chest as she curled into a ball with the wall behind her. Ah, so that’s what it had been, huh?

 

Somewhere along the lines, while she had been watching Dai-chan and waiting for him to do something, she had started expecting him to do anything. She had started _wanting_ him to take action.

 

The sound of the handle of her room being pressed open drew her attention from her thoughts. She looked up from her vantage point on the bed to see who was coming in unannounced only to have her eyes narrow darkly when they were met with the last person she wanted to see there in that moment.

 

“Go away, I don’t feel like dealing with you,” she told him earnestly, closing her eyes petulantly again.

 

She received no response from her newly arrived companion, nor was he fazed in the least by her animosity. He closed the door behind himself, and even had the gall to sit next to her feet on the bed.

 

She let her eyes open again and she glared bloody murder at him, resisting the urge to kick him since he was in such comfortable position for it.

 

“Didn’t you hear me? Leave!”

 

Daiki heaved a sigh and shoved his hands into his hoodie’s large pockets.

 

“Sorry, Satsuki—you’re gonna have to bear with me for a little,” he informed her casually, his voice calm and even, almost edifying.

 

It made her want to kick him all the more, but she decided to repress the desire and give him the benefit of the doubt.

 

He took his sweet time figuring out what exactly it was that he wanted to say to her, though. Who goes to someone’s place without knowing what they want to say, anyway? Only Dai-chan, seriously, _only him_.

 

“You asked me a while back if I had anything to say—and the way you asked made me think you believed I had plenty to say in that situation.” Satsuki pushed herself to a more comfortable sitting position that would allow her to think back on what he meant easier.

 

She remembered something like that happening at Maji Burger when she first told Dai-chan she was dating Kise.

 

“I have no idea what gave me away and when, but you were wrong then, Satsuki.” He speaks so softly and quietly then that it makes her look at him in nonplus. “The way I feel about you never made me feel like I had anything in particular to say to you—not about Kise, or anyone else for that matter.”

 

She raised a confused brow, not at all understanding what he was saying to her. He looked at her then, their gazes meeting for the first time in a week, and in his sapphire orbs she is met with meaning and feeling so profound she has never witnessed before.

 

“Even if Kise hadn’t come, I wouldn’t have said anything. I made up my mind that I won’t from the moment I figured out what was going on.”

 

“Why?!” she demanded impatiently, sitting on her feet on the bed now, her eyes and voice imploring.

 

Daiki smiled in that heart-rending way back at her before pinning his gaze to the carpet under his feet—unable to hold her gaze throughout the confession he was going to make.

 

“I’m no good without you anymore, Satsuki. But you… You’d be fine even if I’m not there, and you’d be much better off without me dragging you down.”

 

He says it so quietly, just barely above a whisper, like he’s telling her his most important secret.

 

And in a sense, she guessed he was.

 

But more than the way he said it, what floored her was _what_ he had said. His confession made her eyes widen and her lips fall slightly ajar, the lower one slightly trembling in emotion.

 

Did… did he seriously believe that? Him, the one and only, Aomine Daiki, king and impersonation of arrogance itself? Did he really just say something so self-loathing and berating as she thought he did?

 

He was a man who wasn’t very good with words—she had known that since very long ago. And in what little he said, she could hear all the things he meant to say as well, but couldn’t.

 

She understood that what he meant was that even if she was no longer by his side, he would still get up in the morning, tie his shoes, go out in the world and do whatever was needed of him. But he’d never feel the same, he would never find his joy again, if she wasn’t there with him.

 

It was true that in last year of middle school and the first year of high school he had relinquished himself to darkness and selfishness, and the self-centeredness had yet to leave him in a more humane state. But how could he honestly say in a straight face that lapses of judgement like that made him someone who would ‘ _drag her down_ ’?

 

“Kise’s a good guy,” he spoke up again, puncturing her thoughts. “He’s the kind of guy who can make you the happy you deserve to be.”

 

She knew he meant well when he said that—she really did. It didn’t stop her from feeling incredibly angry for uttering it out loud, though.

 

“Too bad we broke up, then,” she muttered petulantly, a pout twisting her lips.

 

“What?” Daiki asked in disbelief.

 

Her pout deepened.

"Well, it only makes sense, right? There’s no point in dating someone you have no feelings for.”

 

It took him some time to mull over what she’d just said and to form his ponderings into words.

 

“Why did you agree when he asked you out, then?”

 

Her expression deadpanned, her lips forming a taut line in response.

 

“It was a retarded plan to get a rise out of a certain someone.” She made a pause—for the words to sink in properly—before adding, “Too bad it failed grandly. The only thing this whole retarded game achieved was to make a certain idiot the only thing I’ve been able to think about for _months—_ ”

 

The shriek of surprise she let out he swallowed greedily as he pressed his lips against hers. She made a feeble, half-hearted attempt to push him away and demand what he thought he was doing, but it was really too late for her to protest.

 

The sole object of all her thoughts—the sole reason for her perpetual frustration for months on end—was right there, with her, and the only thing she could see, sense and feel was him. His entire existence enveloped her and permeated her awareness.

 

She let out a little sigh through her nose when his hand cradled her face with that same heart-wrenching gentleness that he seemed to reserve only for her, as if he were handling something extremely precious and very fragile. His warm breath was fanning against her cheek and his lips were softer against hers than she would’ve believed they would be.

 

His scent was filling her mind through her sensitive nose, and she was clinging to his shoulders—fingers fisting into the fabric brutally—even before he pushed his tongue into her mouth.

 

They toppled over sideways with him on top of her, kissing her fervently, with all the passion and uncontrollable ardour that she had been looking for as a reaction from him in _weeks_.

 

When he pulled away for air, leaving her breathless to stare up at him in a daze as he licked his lips before diving his head to lavish her neck with the attention he had been yearning to give it, Satsuki realized that having had him so reserved for so long maybe wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

 

There was only so much a person can do to rein in their feelings for such an extended period of time, and it seemed that the tiny clue her words had given him had been enough to crumble the last of his defences.

 

Now all she had to do was make sure to remain with her sanity intact after throwing herself straight into the deep of a searing mutual infatuation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See? This is the reason I should NOT be given any sort of writing utensil. Anything I write goes out of control. O.o;;
> 
> Anyway, besides the fact that it steered a bit out of my control, I hope you liked! Maybe the ending is a tad rushed, but I think it's understandable, considering what we have on our hands in a couple of frustrated teenagers who feel like their feelings will never bear fruit only to figure out halfway that's not the case. :D Some baka-duo dynamics from yours truly at the end of it there~
> 
> Thoughts, critique and recommendations strongly encouraged!


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